BREAD IN PARIS.

Evening Star, Issue 12061, 4 March 1907, Page 4

BREAD IN PARIS.

There is no city in the world where to much bread is consumed as in Paris. It is estimated, says the ‘Bystander,’ that every inhabitant eats lib a day on the' overage. In England, where meat forms the staple food, tho° consumption of bread is considerably less. Even iq, past centuries the French—especially Parisians —had a htyror of stale bread. And, as in those days people manufactured their own bread, they had a curious way of making it palatable. Strange as it may seem, the bread they prepared—huge round or square slabs—was used as a dish on which the meat was carved, and bore the name of “ trauchoire,” or “ tailloirs.” TJm juice of the meat having penetrated into th< bread imparted a pleasant taste, and - pro vented it from becoming dry. But, as a that period the lower classes hardly or era tasted meat, the “ tranchoip ” were onij found in the houses of the rich. On coronation days large mountains of them were pilec in one of the halls of the King’s palace, and afterwards distributed to the poor. When Louis XII. was crowned, fifteen thousand of these bread slabs, “soaked m gravy, - were given away, and, according .to- an historian caused bloodshed among the crowd tna waited for them.